FIRST DRIVE Merc EQG The Apocalypse Proof EV G Wagen Top Gear

Today we drive the newest of the new Mercedes G-Wagons, the £180,000 G580 with EQ technology, a G-Wagon powered by batteries. Wait, hang on, don't switch off yet because I'm not just going to complain about weight and do zero to 62 times, I'm going to take one of these cars properly off-road to see if it's still the G. First of all let's cover off the on-road stuff. What we have here is a G-Class with a fully electric drivetrain and four motors, but weirdly it's still got a ladder frame chassis independent from suspension and a solid rear axle, so that's a little bit strange for a car like this. In that chassis is packed 116kWh of battery which should give you about 280 miles of WLTP range, which is not actually that much for such a big battery pack. Mind you it does provide you with 580 great horsepower, just under, so that badge on the back actually means something now, and 858lb-ft of torque which should offer up roughly zero to 62mph in about 4.7 seconds and 112mph top speed, which isn't bad for a bus this big because it weighs just over three tonnes. But you know when you're driving it, it just feels like a really smooth, really competent riding G-Wagon, like a modern G-Wagon should. It feels very much like a G63, which is a bit weird, you still get quite a lot of rustle from the big upright windscreen. It's got that kind of slightly luxury feel, it doesn't encourage you to go fast but it can if it wants to. It's a bit of a rock and roll ride if you're really pressing on. It's got a long travel throttle and quite slow steering, so even when you're driving quite fast it's not a sports car. This has been made by people who seem to want it to feel very much like a G-Class. The weird thing is it does everything you expect it to, so when you boot it, it actually makes like a V8 noise. It's called G-Raw and it's a signature sound, so if I put my foot down a bit, so the power is instant, listen to that, the power is very instant but it's not shocking, it doesn't shove you back in the seat. It's like this car is super brawny rather than particularly nippy and that noise is produced by a sound bar that lives under the bonnet and you can switch it off if you want to but I really like it and I love the noise and I usually don't like noises in electric cars. But generally this is just like a G63 but a bit better, which this isn't. But this for me is context because this is what a G-Wagen means to me, not some Kensington High Street G63 wrapped in a gaudy colour. This is not your rap video G. Look at that gear shift my friends, fabulous, the steering doesn't do that much, look we're going in a straight line. Now this is a 1982-1983 G-Wagen, so this was popular when I was a kid unsurprisingly. It's got a 2.8 litre straight-six petrol engine making a paltry 160 brake horsepower, it's got a big slab of a dash, the steering is basically unconnected, the gearbox you have to throw across it, so look this is fourth, if I reach for fifth it's basically in the passenger footwell. It's got diff locks, it's got low range, it's military, it smells a bit funny and you know what, I love it to my core because this has nailed the mission statement for what a G-Wagen should be, it's rugged, it's practical, it's useful. The weather is absolutely apocalyptic, it's raining fit to bust, I feel invincible and that's what a G-Wagen is about, especially the old ones, they make you feel like you can go anywhere and you can do absolutely anything. But the G has evolved from the military-based W460, it had to. 2018 saw the big change to the W463, pointed it more towards regular road use than military chic. The latest facelift sees mild hybrids, a G500 with a straight-six, a V8 G63 with a bit of electric range and attempts to make it aerodynamic with aero-aids on the A-pillars and the windscreen and vents in the rear wheel arches, but there's more clever thinking here than meets the eye. The battery pack may be giant, but there's the same room inside the electric G as the ICE versions. The batteries are double stacked into the ladder frame chassis with all the control stuff under the slightly raised bonnet and there is a lot of control stuff because this electric car has four motors, one for each wheel, which will be important later. And the interior is nice, a bit flashy for my taste, but now there's a decent touchscreen in the middle, plenty of options and decent ergonomics. Until the big change in 2018, that wasn't a given for a person in G-Wagen. Still not that much room in the back, but the boot is as big as the ICE version, which again isn't a given for an electric car. There's an electric grille too, which for some reason we don't get in the UK with first cars, so it's all pretty much as you expect, but that's until you get somewhere a little more challenging. Now there are the usual modes in this car, the sport, comfort, trail and rock, so they've got two off-road modes, but there is no eco mode because Mercedes thought it probably wasn't appropriate in a car of this size and weight, which I think is quite clever. In a G-Wagen, you have a little off-road centre here in the middle of the dash and it has diff locks, so you have front, centre and rear, and a low-range gearbox. This is different because you don't need a diff lock in an electric car with four motors, so instead of those, you have a low-range gearbox, which allows you to sort of multiply your torque to earth-mover levels, which is usually really useful off-road, and then you've got G-steer and G-turn, which I'm going to demonstrate in a moment, but the thing about having four motors is that it gives you an incredible amount of finesse and control. Where you would usually need a diff lock if one wheel was spinning and sort of sapping all your power, with electric motors you just don't need that, so you can instantly provide torque to whichever wheel has grip and it should be basically instantaneous, so even if you've only got one wheel with grip, this car shouldn't be able to drag itself out of whatever hole you've got it stuck in. You know what, if you're just on dirt track, this thing rides really, really well. I mean, I've not even bothered with anything but comfort mode. Now, the wading depth for the G580 is 850 millimetres, and if you want a handy visual reference for that, it's just about the top of the wheel arches, and that's 150 millimetres more than the G63, so you can wade the electric car much deeper. Wow, and look, I'm not even getting wet. I'm essentially the good ship EQ, and I've not been electrocuted. Perfection. This is quite a big section of very rocky rocks, and if this decides to bang that bottom, I know that because it's armour plated, we'll get away with it. When you've got a low range gearbox, which means that you're more efficient with your torque, and you're not pushing your way through the air at kind of motorway speeds, electric cars go a long way off-road. It's not about linear distance, it's more about hours of operation. When you're using loads of recuperation all the time off-road and putting a bit of energy back in the battery, so they're extremely handy off-road, and they last for ages. Look at this. This is insane, really. Oh, big bump on that undertray. You can feel it just sliding across. There'll be a few scars on the bottom of this one, and I'm not even having to touch the accelerator pedal because I've got it in off-road crawl, which is essentially off-road cruise control, so I've just set this car in low range in rock mode, and then it's just making its own way. You can increase the speed or decrease it from the paddles, but it's extremely useful. I think the only thing I'm starting to think at the moment is that I spent a long time trying to get good at driving off-road, and I'm still only half learned, and this car makes it really easy. Look at this. I'm facing downhill. I'm hanging from my seatbelt. I'm not even touching any of the pedals. G-turn. Now, you have to be in rock and in low range, and then basically you press the G-turn button and then hold the paddle in the direction that you want to change, and then just press the throttle. So you're basically over-speeding the outside wheels and then spinning the opposite direction with the inside wheels, which means the car just turns on the spot. It'll only do 720 degrees, so you can't just donut it forever, and technically you're not allowed to do it on a public highway because it's illegal, also because you'd wreck the tyres within about two goes. The thing is, I got here thinking that G-turn was a gimmick and it was just there to showcase what the drivetrain can do. I have now decided that I will use G-turn literally everywhere. That's awesome, and then you can just drive away. But there is another function of having four electric motors that I find really interesting, I think would be really useful off-road, and it's called G-steer. So if I press this button when I'm in crawl mode, essentially what it'll do is brake one inside rear wheel, depending on which way I steer, and then over-speed the outside wheels, meaning that I'll do a super tight turn. You can turn around your inside wheel. Now this will operate up to about 25 kilometres an hour, but it means you can do super tight turns. It's absolutely awesome. If I was going to start doing off-roading properly, I'd still have a Lada Niva with a lift and lockers in it, because it would be fun and it would be cheap, and it would be a bit more involving. In the same way that I'd have a cheap track car, rather than taking a road-legal supercar on a track. But you cannot deny that this is a proper G-Wagon. It can do what it says on the tin, and it's four grand cheaper than a G63. This might be my favourite G-Wagon, and yet it's the most bonkers. But, and it is quite a big but, the electric G had to be capable of more. It had to stand up to those pillars of genius, and some brilliant engineering brains have actually made sure of that. This car is pointless, but astounding, and a showcase for what's actually possible. Thing is, I am now absolutely convinced that electric motors are better than internal combustion at off-roading. They're not more fun, but they are more capable and more finessed. This is a car that is absolutely gobsmacking and the best of its breed. It's just a big shame that so few of them are really going to be put to the test.